Diptera or true flies are found on all continents including Antarctica. Flies are the most important arthropod vectors of disease in humans and other animals. In addition to serving as vectors for diseases, flies can cause health problems themselves. Still others are nuisance pests or carry filth, such as latrine flies (Chrysomyia, family Calliphoridae), which breed in excrement and garbage. Fruit flies (family Tephritidae) are among the most destructive agricultural pests in the world, destroying citrus crops and other fruit and vegetable crops at an alarming rate and forcing food and agriculture agencies to spend millions of dollars on control and management measures.
One example of this problem is the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata. Native to Africa, this voracious pest has spread to Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America, Western Australia and Hawaii. Outbreaks of this pest have also been found in the Continental United States, including the fruit producing regions of California and Florida triggering quarantine actions to control them. Although a poor flier, it is readily carried by winds and can be shipped virtually anywhere in the world in or on infected plants and produce. The Mediterranean fruit fly attacks more than 260 different fruits, flowers, nuts and vegetables. Their preferred hosts are succulent fruits, especially fruit that are thin skinned, nearly ripened and that have a break in their surface. A typical adult female fly may lay between 1-10 eggs at a time into a fruit; furthermore, a female can lay about 800 eggs over her lifetime. Under warm conditions such as those found in many fruit growing regions of Florida and California, the eggs hatch into larvae between 36 and 72 hours later. Depending on the ambient conditions and the food source, larvae mature between 10 to 26 days after hatching. The Mediterranean fruit fly larvae are voracious eaters and larvae hatched into a piece of ripening fruit develop by consuming the fruit and, in the process, reduce the fruit to an inedible mass.
Therefore, for many reasons, including the above reasons, a need exists for new ways to control Diptera.